


The Voluptuary Vacation

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Alien Biology, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22028902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: The Skeksis have just reached their 700 trine milestone, and the Ornamentalist has never felt like celebrating less. SkekAyuk proposes an idea.For Ryanglitter.
Relationships: skekAyuk/skekEkt (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Brains for providing and enabling the title.

The Skeksis birthday parties, once upon a time, had been the stuff of legend. Considering they were creatures who would pounce upon any occasion to celebrate, that was quite the accomplishment.

The 100 trine anniversary of the day the Skeksis had first appeared had seen invitations from the Sifan Coast to as far as the Sami Thicket. The mighty Lords of the Crystals, who would ordinarily restrain themselves from bringing in more guests than could fit in their castle, threw such silly compunctions to the wayside for such a high occasion, and the flat green plains surrounding the castle had blossomed with colorful tents, thickly padded and wanting for no comfort. In those days before clan names, before borders, it had been a time for Gelfling to lie about the sunlit grass with Podlings, for Podlings to bang glasses with Gelfling. For feasting and dancing until they fell wherever they lie, then rising with the suns for more of the same – for indeed, the celebrations stretched on for days.

The castle itself radiated an almost other otherworldly decadence such as had never been seen before, or since; decked from ceiling to floor in shimmering gold, opalescent white, minute fragments of crystal set into satin and painted onto marble and even still, no comparison to the Skeksis themselves. Clad in their finest silks, just enough to accentuate their strange, beautiful bodies that had been highlighted with paints and glitters for the occasion...the radiant and proud personifications of crystal itself.

The Emperor, his natural blacks and purples lovingly bolstered and made to stand out until he resembled nothing so much as a summer ninet sky at twilight _(and every ounce as mysterious and loved)_ had toasted all in attendance.

“My friends! To your health, your joy, and to one hundred trine of your loyalty and company. Here's to many more!”

While the Skeksis, of course dined on nothing but the most luxuriously marbled cuts of meat, they'd graciously accommodated the tastes of their subjects; spiraling vegetable tarts in every color imaginable, elaborate towers of nuts and grains, vegetarian pies dripping with hot mushroom gravy, and wines of every description, from pale gold to old blood red to the sweetest of seasonal berry.

How they pulled it all together, no one in attendance ever quite succeeded in figuring out.

***

If the size and grandeur of the day lessened with time, well, that was of course to be understood. There was no revelry on the grass, no crystal ornamentation, and only the elite of each clan had been invited on the day the Skeksis turned 700 trine old.

But the Gelfling who served in the castle enjoyed themselves, the guards rotating in and out so all could have a chance to eat some rare mushrooms and dance a turn or two in their finest. Emperor SkekSo still toasted their loyalty. It was still an opportunity to watch their Lords grow drunker by the hour; the Collector and the Scroll-Keeper exchanging increasingly bawdy jokes until the Ritual-Master intervened and made them stop, skekVar speaking glowingly of their Emperor's qualities, and the Chamberlain not-so-discreetly attempting to outdo each one. The Scientist, full of enough wine to temper his snappishness, dancing with a giggling Vapran dowager.

The Gourmand, for the most part, seemed concerned with making sure no one ran short of anything, and haranguing the kitchen staff to that end. The coming of another hundred trine marker invariably meant that each Skeksis got to eat and drink whatever they liked best, and as much of it, and that it should be as fresh as possible without the Gelfling raising a colossal fuss. That meant a great deal of slipping away to personally see to the dispatching of the woolybara, the eyes of which were so beloved by skekNa, or the uncorking of the Emperor's favorite wine, or any of the many cream sauces that needed to be stirred and sampled for taste and then sampled again. All without soiling his ceremonial finery, naturally.

In all the commotion, he might have been forgiven for noticing when the Ornamentalist disappeared quietly from the proceedings.

SkekAyuk didn't fail to notice.

***

Something had to be wrong.

SkekEkt _adored_ these parties, which catered to his personal delights in so many ways. He thrived on the chance to be adored even more heartily than usual by the Gelfling, to decorate without modesty or restraint, to hear the accolades heaped on the garments he'd so painstakingly designed just for this day, and no other. If he was gone, and remaining gone, either something significant had ripped or something was dreadfully the matter.

Not in their chambers. Not in the Ornamentalist's workshop.

“SkekEkt?” he called, peering around the eerily darkened library. Called again, and again, over the rooftops and balconies, where his partner was well known to disappear to when he was feeling a bit off. The workshop, just once more.

SkekAyuk found him in the bed chambers, but not the ones they shared. His own chamber specifically – or rather, the one he'd slept in long ago, before they started cohabitating, and still kept as a storage for excess effects and a place to storm off to whenever the two found themselves in some squabble or other. He was clutching something framed in his talons, hunched in his chair...and it was then that skekAyuk realized he was sobbing.

“SkekEkt!” he cried out, by his side as quick as he could move, his first thought that someone had said something to offend the Ornamentalist and was going to _pay_ for it, Gelfling audience or no. “What's wrong? Talk to me, love.”

The eyes skekEkt raised to meet him were red and rimmed with mascara smeared, dabbed away with a tableside handkerchief long gone black. SkekEkt, as though words would have taken more from him than he currently possessed, gestured vaguely towards the frame in his hand.

A portrait, skekAyuk observed. A portrait of SkekEkt himself. Not the full size painting hanging above their bed, the one he so prized – a smaller one, almost subdued in a way that few things the Ornamentalist did could claim, and one of skekEkt's favorites. Young and slim and unabashedly naked, lounging about on a dais with a face full of laughter, shining red hair framing the side of his face coyly. Red feathers lush and thick as autumn foliage.

Playful. Vibrant.

“Oh...”

“I can't do it,” skekEkt said softly. “I can't...just flounce around, making nice with Gelfling, pretending everything's alright the way everyone else is.”

“Did someone say something to you?”

“They didn't have to. I've been in front of the mirror for unum, putting together everyone's outfits, seeing all our old measurements. I thought it was nerves at first, that it would all fall away when the day arrived but...oh, skekAyuk, what have I _become?_ ”

His voice cracked and skekAyuk's arms were already extended, ready to hold him close as he fell into them, bitter sobs swallowed up by the silk at skekAyuk's breast. He discreetly set the painting aside, knowing skekEkt would be loath to let it become tear stained even if it did bring him misery, but thought little of the talons that gripped the fine, delicate fabric they themselves had so painstakingly sewed, or the tears that soaked it through. He carded his fingers through skekEkt's loose flowing locks, still bearing the faintest scent of dye. How it had killed skekEkt the first time he ever felt he had to start applying it, some 95 trine ago.

“No, no, love. None of that, now...”

“Look at my _hands_. Disgusting, shriveled old hands. When did that even happen? How?”

“Your hands are lovely.”

“Please don't. I know you see it too, of course you wouldn't say it--”

“SkekEkt. Listen to me, lovebird.” Gently, gently, he untangled his partner from his robes. Brushed the wet hair from his beak and the tears from his cheeks. “I meant it. I've always meant it, every single time. You're more beautiful than ever. The others, _they_ look old. You look like you've lived. Anyone can look nice enough in fancy feathers, you're stunning _now_.”

SkekEkt's tears ran faster than he could sweep them away. “I don't _want_ to look like I've lived. I just want myself back.”

This time, when he cried into skekAyuk's shoulder, skekAyuk simply let him.

But he was thinking. All the while, as he was stroking the back of his neck and muttering soft, soothing nonsense and holding him tight, he was thinking.

Gradually, the quaking of skekEkt's shoulders stilled. His sobs came quieter, shorter together, taking the form of soft hiccups rather than rattling wails, but skekAyuk's arms stayed right where they were, keeping him close, despising the fact that skekEkt had to mourn anything, ever. And yet, still thinking.

“I do believe...I _may_ just have an idea.”

“Hmm?”

It would take some maneuvering, surely. But yes...yes, he believed it entirely possible. In fact, they were long overdue for it.

“What do you say you and I get out of here? Far away from this place.”

SkekEkt sat up very suddenly. “Forever?”

“No, no! Of course not. Just for a day or two. You can hardly be blamed for feeling wretched, surrounded by those relics downstairs slopping wine and fatty meat into their beaks,” said skekAyuk, who was as recently as an hour ago slopping wine and fatty meat into his beak. “Let's slip away like we used to. Go someplace and celebrate, just the two of us.”

SkekEkt took up his ruined handkerchief, dabbing his eyes. “Where would we even go?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“I haven't the faintest.”

“Well, you think about it. I'll go and let the Podlings know they've got to police their own competency for a bit.”

SkekEkt's face fell anew. “The Emperor will never allow it. Certainly not when the Gelfling are about. We'll come back to the Needler.”

“No, no, you leave the Emperor to me. You go and pack as quickly as you can, and don't worry about it. I solemnly promise, we will _not_ get the Needler.”

He supposed, privately, that in the very worst of circumstances – say, if the castle were to fall under attack in their absence – _he_ might receive some punishment or other, but only if he played his cards very wrong and even so, that it would not be the Needler. The Needler took time to oil and warm up and that was more work than anyone wanted to put in after the excesses of a birthday celebration. If anything, _anything at all,_ they would cut off his meal privileges, and for skekEkt, it would be well worth it.

SkekEkt, like a ray of sunshine after a week of solid storm, cracked a smile.

“Alright. Alright, you devil! You've convinced me!”

“Excellent!” said skekAyuk, clapping his claws as he rose. “Do try to pack light! Don't bring your entire wardrobe!”

“I promise you nothing!”

SkekAyuk was laughing as he went.

***

By the time he returned, lightly stuffed travel bag in hand, skekEkt had packed perhaps a quarter of his wardrobe, which wouldn't have been a problem if his wardrobe weren't so utterly massive. SkekAyuk didn't much care.

“Permission granted! We're in the clear!”

“Are you serious?”

“Entirely! Straight from the Emperor's beak.” He bustled around, the spontaneity of this whole affair like a bolstering drink he didn't know he needed, the light in his partner's eyes warming him all through. SkekEkt launched himself in his direction and hugged him giddly around the shoulders, and skekAyuk laughed and picked him up.

“How did you even manage?”

“I'll tell you later. Did you decide where you want to go?”

“Nowhere terribly cold. Other than that, I don't care, I'll go anywhere you've a mind to take me.”

SkekAyuk performed a quick run through of places civilized enough and soft enough to accommodate two Skeksis, and it hit him like a bolt. “ _We should go to_ _the Spriton Cliffs._ ”

The Ornamentalist shrieked. “Do you mean--”

“The very same.”

“Is it even still there?”

“It is!”

“Then yes, of course, let's go! Absolutely!”

If the plan was to make skekEkt feel young again, that life did not end at 500 – as they made their way along the corridors, avoiding the distant music and clamor of their own party despite not _really_ having a need to, and smothering their laughter every step of the way -- it was shaping up to be a successful one. SkekAyuk could have sworn the trine were weighing lighter upon his own shoulders. The carriage was already waiting for them, the Podlings – still clad in their party attire – packing the last bundles as per skekAyuk's instructions, the Armaligs hitched and blinking quizzically at being roused from their beds after dark. No armed escort, which was likely foolish on the face of it, but an escort defeated the purpose of sneaking away, and anyhow, if they were not the fluffy young things they were when they used to do this, at least this came with some substantial fighting prowess under both their belts.

The head stable Podling ventured an anxious question.

“What? No, of course you're not going to be punished for this! I told you, we're not fleeing. The Emperor knows we're not fleeing, if we come back to find any of you've gone and given him the impression that we have, I will personally break you.”

The Podling lapsed into rapidfire apologies that threatened to bring down the jovial mood, and it was skekEkt who intervened, waving fussily with a claw.

“Stop that! Wipe that straw off yourselves and go back to the celebration. Sneak a taste of the good wine for us. You Podlings enjoy that, don't you?”

With a lurch of the carriage, they were off into the night. SkekAyuk lit the carriage lanterns and in the orange glow, in the quiet save for the rattle of Armalig carapace on stone, in the sight of the castle's silhouette growing smaller behind them, it settled upon them both precisely what they'd done.

It was a time for either worrying or lapsing into helpless laughter. SkekEkt chose the latter.

“Oh Thra...we're actually _doing this_ , aren't we?”

“Well, unless you want to turn around--”

“Not in the slightest! I'm just...did this always feel like we were getting away with something terribly naughty?”

“I would _hope_ it did. Can you imagine wasting our time on something well-behaved?”

SkekEkt smiled, and there was no doubt about it...skekAyuk would have sacrificed all the meal privileges in the world for that smile.

“Perish the thought, darling. Perish the very thought.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Spriton Cliffs themselves, at least as far as first glance will tell, are nothing special. Comprised of the dangling tail of the Claw Mountains, they're sandy-white and flat, like Landstrider teeth against the sky. If you climbed them, you'd see the Swamp of Sog on one side and the open sea on the other, and if you broke off a piece and licked one, it would taste like salt. Similar to the plains they overlook, they grow dreadfully monotonous dreadfully fast; the Spriton plains are made up of farmers, and the eponymous cliffs are what farmers would be if they were also cliffs.

But they hide a secret, those mountains, and that secret, as it happens, lays at the end of a poorly tended road branching off from the middle of nowhere at all. When they reach the end of it, skekEkt and skekAyuk are dozing off against one another's shoulders. It's the confused bleating of the Armaligs, wondering why they're not being unhitched despite following the exact directions their Podling keepers imparted on them, that wakes them both, rather than the sudden lack of motion.

SkekEkt lifts his head from his comfortable-ish position propped up against skekAyuk, blinking owlishly against the dark.

“Are we here?”

SkekAyuk snorts himself fully awake. “I would imagine so.”

A part of him, he'll confess, is anxious as they step outside and adjust to the moonlight through the trees. It's been...oh, _so_ many trine since they were here last. It's not as though the place is abandoned – he knows for a fact that skekLach likes to come here, claiming the fresh air and salt helps their skin condition, and he's got a very strong suspicion that skekZok's mysterious “spiritual sabbaticals” are either a euphemism for sexually motivated murder committed while thinking of skekTek or a vacation to this place. All the same, he wouldn't have been surprised to find the entire grove overgrown and rotted away, like a nasty little reminder from the universe itself that _everything decays, skekEkt, even much beloved hideaways. Even you. Especially you._

But no. There it is, standing smooth and precise amid the rougher cliff face, the branches on either side of the path trimmed neatly back; gleaming white door set against the mountain range, illuminated by a precise wreath of Grottan ivy. Shuttered, darkened windows leading up.

Exactly the same as it was when last they left it, and swore they'd be back soon, all those trine ago.

This little retreat was skekSa's in bygone days; her first attempt at setting up a second home away from her true home on the sea. The specifics fail skekEkt's memory now, but he believes the idea was to have something in relative proximity to the castle while also remaining well _away_ from the castle and within ambling distance of the water. Whatever the exact reason, she'd declared it redundant, made her second home in Ha'rar, and left this for the use of any Skeksis who wanted it.

“One of these days, I promise you,” says skekEkt as he does every time they come here, as skekAyuk fumbles with the old skeleton key, “we're going to walk in on a Sifan orgy.”

“She said it was ours. She would have warned us if we were meant to share with Gelfling.”

“She likes the Sifa more than us.”

They move from room to room lighting lanterns, and if there's a Sifan orgy to be seen, it's a very polite and well-hidden one. The lights illuminate an aesthetic that's all skekSa, but one skekEkt can appreciate – thick, soft with blue and cream fabrics, laden with hidden grottos and not-so-hidden balconies, deep and comfortable and exactly rustic enough. Stone walls made smooth and painted with the sea and sky, adorned at intervals with hanging weapons skekSa didn't like enough to carry with her. When skekEkt runs a palm along a tabletop, it comes away dust free, and he wonders, as he likely will forever, just who comes by to clean this place and at whose behest.

When skekAyuk pops out of a room, there's a grin on his beak. “Just a tad nicer than spending our 700th trine watching skekNa vomit woolybara eyes, I'd say?”

“Oh, _darling._ ” SkekEkt seizes that clever, plump, absurdly gorgeous face in his claws and rubs their beaks until they clack. “You spoil me, I hope you realize. Spoil me senseless.”

“Me? Never!” answers skekAyuk, smile unwavering. “It's skekSa's. So _technically speaking_ , skekSa's spoiling you.”

“Well, skekSa isn't here. So someone else is just going to have to ravish me silly.”

SkekAyuk nips him on the neck with a pleased growl.

He was joking, marginally, but when skekAyuk nips him again, then again, he strongly considers the benefits of dropping down on the hallway floor, a stone's throw from a proper bed. But stiff as he is from the carriage ride, itching and sweating and remembering all too clearly the number of elderly Gelfling that had insisted on gripping his hand--

“Do you think the pools are still flowing?”

“You go check. I'll be right along.”

SkekEkt gives him a last tap on the beak before darting up the steps, ascending the coiling stairway to a rooftop which leads to a stone path which leads to a grassy hillside where, he's long suspected, lies the entire reason anyone would choose to place their home in this section of the mountain range beyond all others.

Centuries of the incessant pounding of thermal waterfalls have shaped the stone and mineral into no less than a dozen round pools, heated by thermal vents and gently billowing steam. They lay atop one another like flat cakes, or the heads of mushrooms, and much to skekEkt's delight, they're said to do wonders for the skin. He suspects he would still indulge even if they were hellish on it.

As much pride as he takes in his ceremonial robes, they were meant to be worn once and, particularly in the case of his own set, with style taking precedence over comfort. Peeling himself free is a pleasure just shy of unrivaled; he thanks the broaches, the jewels and satin gloves, the high-throated, rose-colored silk and floral pressings a fondest farewell, and then drapes it all over a rock.

For a moment, he simply stands there, hands covering himself as though there were anyone around to see, let alone judge. It's been a trying time, these days leading up to this night, and there are mirrors in this house, mirrors to haunt him, but not up here in the wind and the starlight, and the sound of the sea rolling agelessly in the blackness beyond. And when he sinks into the steaming water up to his chin, and the tension rolls from him like beads of water off a Myrrhie's scales, he finds it easy to call a happy truce with his body.

He lounges with arms drawn in and tail curled, loathe to let an inch of himself breach the little realm of luxurious heat, and closes his eyes. It seems a great deal of time has passed before the rustle of skekAyuk disrobing offers sufficient incentive to open them again.

“There you are. I was about to ask if you were awake.”

“I'm _not_ not-awake,” skekEkt replies, shifting to make room. “Remind me again, why do we ever leave this place?”

“The lack of Podlings to wait on us hand and foot.”

“Next time, we'll drag a few along. Stick them in back with the rest of our things.”

“Brilliant.”

All the long carriage rides and warm, steaming mineral baths in the world aren't enough to fully temper his interest in watching the last of skekAyuk's robes fall away. He used to fear the novelty wearing off, the mere idea that they would someday grow so accustomed to each other as to become bored, but all these trine on, he still enjoys watching the surprisingly thick muscles of skekAyuk's upper body rolling; the way his little tail meets his body, and the curve of his belly, about six times broader than it was when they met, but big and soft and inviting. He may be long past blushing and stammering and trying to avert his eyes from the vicinity of the Gourmand's genital slits, but skekAyuk has never once been anything save the most attractive being on Thra in his eyes.

SkekAyuk's got two glasses in hand, and slipping in beside him, he passes him one. “To 700 trine?”

“To 700 more of sneaking away from the castle rabble.” They clink. It's _good_ wine, fruity and dark. It feels like these baths, like the darkened sea; like the rest of this evening. “Might I reiterate that this was a _marvelous_ idea?”

SkekAyuk chuckles in that thick way that he does. “It was as much for my benefit as yours. I can eat and drink and listen to the Gelfling blather our praises any day, at any time at all...if I'm going to celebrate, I'd like to be _allowed_ to celebrate it with the one being on Thra who makes getting older enjoyable.”

SkekEkt wakes up at that. “Do I really? Make it enjoyable?”

“Of course. You make it all fun. I love seeing what's around the next bend, as long as I'm seeing it with you.”

SkekEkt blushes. He cuddles in close, and skekAyuk wraps an arm around him, gentle talons tracing circles on his back, and there's really nothing else to say, but... “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He nuzzles the top of skekEkt's head, like he can never do when they're standing properly, and skekEkt feels the soft curve of his smile. “Happy birthday, crawlie dumpling.”

SkekEkt has to laugh, suddenly. “I really _was_ planning to get you in here and pounce on you. I still want to, I desperately want to, and yet I swear the moment I get in your lap, I _am_ going to fall asleep.”

SkekAyuk chortles again. “I told the Emperor two, three days. We've no rush.”

“That reminds me. How _did_ you convince the Emperor to let us leave?”

“What convincing? He was too stuffed and exhausted to care what I had to say or where I said we would be.”

“You are a fiend!” skekEkt accuses fondly, wondering how long this strategy has been sitting in skekAyuk's rotation. “Hang alliances...apparently it's just that simple.”

“Well, he was! I told him the Gelfling would make him his favorite breakfast, but do you know, it may have been gilding the lily. As long as the kitchens stay open and no one's running around in grain sacks, he couldn't begin to care less what you or I get up to.”

“Are you playing the Emperor this way or does it apply to all of us? Just how many of us are being led along by the puppet strings that is skekAyuk's delicious food?”

“I _do_ recall that time you told me if we were Gelfling, you'd bare me a thousand hideous childlings. That was over breakfast pastry.”

“It was the second helping that did it.”

They don't emerge until the last of the wine is gone, their chests aching from laughter, and skekEkt's certain his skin has never been more waterlogged. By then, the three Sisters are inching low, and the sky is paling to gray.

There are several beds, but they always take the topmost one with the sprawling four poster, the one that overlooks the ocean. It feels luxurious, like the Emperor's sleeping quarters without the air of paranoia and existential dread, and once he sinks in deep into that glorious feather mattress (he once plucked a few feathers from it, but never did succeed in identifying which bird it came from.), skekEkt can easily make himself believe skekSa never rutted skekZok senseless in this very spot.

He curls his tail around skekAyuk's and intends to say something. He's asleep the moment he closes his eyes.

***

SkekEkt wakes twice.

The first time, it's to the rose-colored light of dawn hinting through the drawn curtains and skekAyuk sprawled beside him. Much, _much_ too early to be up. However, he spares a moment to reflect happily on the fact that there's no one of importance around for miles. No Chamberlain rapping at his door, wheedling about someone's torn sleeve...no worries about dodging skekLach's seepage in a way that doesn't offend them. If he and skekAyuk do anything at all today, it will be because they want to. Curled up comfortably in that knowledge, he arches his back until it cracks, drapes himself over skekAyuk's big, warm, soft person, and sleeps the sleep of the indolent.

The second time, he's alone. But the house smells glorious.

He's certain he packed a robe, but has little interest in rummaging for it, and so makes his sleepy, naked way down to the kitchen. There's skekAyuk, rolling dough in an apron and nothing else. SkekEkt's neither so old nor so groggy that he can't appreciate the sight.

“What are you up to?” he yawns, all fang. “Thought the whole point of these trips was that we didn't have to work.”

“You have _no idea_ how long it's been since I was free to cook without worrying about what everyone liked.” SkekEkt, who has a long list of who can't wear what textile because it makes them itch, has an inkling. “The tea's by the fire, by the way.”

SkekEkt makes himself a cup, syrup-sweet, despite skekAyuk's staunch belief that tea should be as strong as a kick to the beak. A few long sips on, he begins to feel like a proper living creature again, and takes a peek at skekAyuk's cooking project.

“Ooh, crawlie rolls.” He pauses. “Wait...you actually brought crawlies along?”

SkekAyuk chuckles. “Only the nectar. Don't worry.”

In their earliest days together, skekAyuk had tried, really, tried, and failed to conceal how hilarious he found it, skekEkt's fear of dessert.

“ _I'm not afraid of them,” skekEkt had replied. “Only when they run. I'm worried they're going to bite me or crawl up my_ _robes.”_

“ _I'm the only one allowed to crawl up your robes and bite you.”_

The thought warms him more than tea. He's certain he can be forgiven for stealing a smack on skekAyuk's ample rump as he meanders back to the table.

“You're awfully sprightly for someone who's one tea in.”

“Don't know what you could possibly be talking about. But if you'd like to just keep that on the entire time we're here, _I_ certainly wouldn't object.”

SkekAyuk's hands slow on the dough, and that _is_ an accomplishment. Dough is a living food, demanding nurturing, and skekAyuk's highly attentive to the needs of living food, skekEkt, and absolutely nothing else. There's a war going on in his head, skekEkt knows, and one he's exceedingly proud to have sparked.

“...You're making a very solid case for washing the flour off my hands.”

“I try to aim high.” An idea is percolating, and it's too early in the morning to consider silly quandaries like whether or not it's a good one. He rises, slowly, and _maybe_ makes a show of swinging his hips and curling his tail, but skekAyuk's looking at him like he wants to pin him down and eat him bit by bit, affirming his long held belief that it pays in life to be excessive. “Turn around. No, no, don't worry about your hands. Leave them right where they are. _Exactly_ where they are.”

SkekAyuk catches onto his angle fast. “You call _me_ a fiend?”

“Yes,” skekEkt croons, threading arms about his shoulders and nibbling on the place where his neck joins them. Hips already rocking, still a little sleepy, but hungry. “Yes, I do.”

He feels it, hears it, tastes it when skekAyuk gulps. It really is a splendid thing any way you take it.

SkekAyuk's hands may be hobbled by flour dust, but skekEkt's are free as the wind, and he wastes no time putting them to task. A few well-timed strokes of his fingertip across the vertical line of skekAyuk's upper slit and he's got the Gourmand's tips in hand, which is all anyone really needs to make things happen. He pushes the apron aside and palms both at once, squeezing, rubbing until skekAyuk's hard, big and thick and irresistible. His tongue aches to taste them, and he considers whether it's too early to be washing cum out of his hair.

SkekAyuk, meanwhile, is keeping his hands on the counter like a good Skeksis. Head lolled back, eyes closed. SkekEkt leans forward, one palm braced on the counter's edge, the other gripping their four erections as well as he can, and stroking -- not too fast and not too slow, twisting his hand around the tips whenever he gets the sense that skekAyuk isn't expecting it.

“ _Oh, skekEkt...my skekEkt..._ ” skekAyuk whispers, weighty with adoration. SkekEkt noses deep into his neck and rocks against him, dragging their lengths, sliding back up into his own grip. A part of him wants more, or perhaps just anticipates more, but skekAyuk's right, they're in no rush, and this is just right for now.

“You feel amazing...”

“Do I?”

“Mmm...want you so much. Want you to take me over ever surface in this place.”

SkekAyuk's hands twitch with what skekEkt hopes is the urge to grab onto him, or maybe spin him around and just take him on the counter, and skekEkt would be the last one to care if they did, flour or no flour, hygienic cooking environment or no. It's _good..._ just so very good, skekAyuk matching his rhythm so that the friction has him seeing white diamond lights. SkekEkt spares his other hand, leaning his full weight against skekAyuk as he works them both, faster and faster--

“ _Oh Thra, oh Thra, OH!”_

He comes, gasping, into skekAyuk's neck; moments later, skekAyuk jumps against his palms and paints his fingers, groaning his name like it's the most important sound in the world – and for a moment, skekEkt always believes it is. He's so warm and solid beneath skekEkt, like he can lean here against him forever, and it doesn't matter that his hands are coated liberally in both their fluids, or that they're old wrecks, or that there's a smell of something burning in the air, or--

_Oh, skreesh._

SkekAyuk scrambles wordlessly to the oven, apron dropping over his _very_ rapidly retreating phalluses, yanks on his oven mitts with more calm than skekEkt could ever hope to accumulate in his life, and yanks the rolls free along with a small but very discernible cloud of smoke.

“I'm sorry!” skekEkt wails.

“Why? It's not our home.”

“Because I _started_ it!”

“And we both finished it.”

SkekEkt fusses around wringing his hands for a moment or two before falling back to the more helpful course of action that is opening window slats. Burnt crawlie feathers are one of his least favorite scents, and these don't smell like _that_ , thank Thra, but it's the principle of the thing, playing any hand in wrecking something his partner has created. SkekAyuk inspects a small hourglass skekEkt never even realized was there, long since run out.

“They should rig some sort of bell onto that.”

“It _does_ have a bell.” SkekAyuk leaves it and goes back to attending his charred creation, still nonplussed; if anything, slowly brightening the way skekEkt's only ever seen him get over a culinary challenge – an uncooperative ingredient or the rare occasion the castle larders are bare. “Oh! I know exactly how to fix these! I'm going to clean off and _then_ I know exactly how to fix this!”

By the time skekEkt's washed and put on something more substantial than nothing, skekAyuk's not only done the same, but set to throwing things in a small bowl and tasting them and then adding more things. SkekEkt can only watch in astonishment as he cuts the blackened bits off, pours the sauce over the rest, lets it all soak through.

"Crawlie pudding. 700 trine and I'm still waiting on a kitchen mishap that offers a _real_ challenge."

It's sticky, sweet, and pairs perfectly with their tea.

***

Despite what some among the Gelfling like to claim, the Skeksis are entirely capable of not only swimming, but swimming well. After skekMal and skekSa discovered a knack for it, the Emperor got it into his head that it would be sensible to teach himself and forced them all to follow suit, and once all the screaming and coughing up endless mouthfuls of water was behind them, they found that being blessed with four arms and powerful tails had them cutting through the water with ease. Doesn't mean they care for it, or would choose it under the threat of anything short of knifepoint.

SkekEkt and skekAyuk are perfectly content to throw out a blanket and prop up a parasol and idle around in the warm sand, staring at the waves, a comfortable distance between themselves and a sea full of things that eat Skeksis.

“Do you know what I miss?” skekAyuk muses, staring out at the place where the horizon touches the sky. “The days when we had a Path-Finder.”

“Oh? Why's that?”

“Well, don't you? Waiting on his return...he'd upend sacks of things he'd found over the tables and have a story for each and every one?”

“I thought you hated the Heretic,” remarks skekEkt, more than slightly taken back. When skekGra had betrayed them, skekAyuk was the only one to regret aloud that they hadn't killed him and made an end of it once and for all. Even now, even today, he remains highly resentful of the fact that someone out there thinks skekEkt's “wholeness” lies in being taken out of existence, and out of his arms, and forced to make up one half of a long dead creature from beyond the stars.

“The Heretic, yes, of course. I don't miss _skekGra_ , I miss having a Path-Finder. Hearing what was out there without having to actually leave the castle.”

SkekEkt peers at the horizon that's got him so entranced. “I _still_ think it's a terrible shame we get beaks, feathers, but no wings.”

“If I walk along the shoreline, do you want to come?”

“Yes.”

SkekEkt takes the parasol because he doesn't _care_ what skekMal has to say on the subject of the suns, nothing that causes wrinkles can possibly be good for you. They wander aimlessly toward that spot in the distance where the beach runs smack into a cliff face, with no intention of going that far, but content in the interim. Their robes trail in the surf, and every now and then, a seashell catches both skekEkt's eye and his neverending quest for new pigments, and ends up in the makeshift basket that is his cupped robes.

“Careful,” skekAyuk fusses. “You know that some of those things bite.”

“I know, I know.”  
  


“Or spit poison.”

  
“I know.”

They never do find any of the shells that bite, spit, or lay eggs in the meat between your thumb and hand, but towards the distant end of the beach, skekEkt reaches for a shell that wanders away from his grasp. It's pale purple in coloration, the little body that scuttles along beneath it covered with angry black bristles, and when the Ornamentalist jabs it with a stick, it emits an angry hissing sound.

“SkekSo,” he tells it. “Your name is Little skekSo.”

_That_ gets them going, and they spend every second of the return hike indulging in the endless liberty to talk badly about their great, powerful, and occasionally beloved Emperor. All the times he's nodded off during court. His affinity for the Chamberlain. The monologue that led to skekLi leaving the castle very, very quickly.

They chase each other the last stretch back to the blanket simply because they can, splashing through the waves simply because no one's around to judge them for doing so. It winds them to the point of doubling over wheezing, leaning heavily on one another, and before they've quite got their breath back, rubbing beaks simply because they're both here.

“Love,” skekEkt says suddenly, flush with inspiration and drunk on freedom. “Do you remember what the _best_ part of being away from the castle always was?”

“I can think of several.”

“You know...the one we used to do all the time when we were younger? The one that, specifically, we could _never_ get away with now?” SkekAyuk tilts his head, and skekEkt can't blame him for not following...skekEkt can hardly believe he still remembers, they're all so ingrained in the habit of pretending they never do it. But some things one never forgets. Setting the parasol ever-so carefully aside, he hopskips in place, bobbing his head and clattering his beak – the picture of unseemliness for a Lord of Crystal, but then, such was the point. Sure enough, there it is...the dawning comprehension in skekAyuk's eyes.

“Oh. _Oh._ ”

"Well? skekEkt purrs. “ _Shall we_ , darling?”

“Oh, you just _wait._ ”

They shuck off their robes, leaving them lying in the sand. SkekEkt wonders if he still has it in him to do it the way they used to, but as it turns out, he does...dropping to all fours and scrabbling the sand, spine becoming fluid, tail curving to balance his weight. A little stiff, perhaps, but capable nevertheless. And skekAyuk follows heavily, belly dragging, but surprisingly nimble as he makes that first grab, meant for him to dodge.

With that, they're off across the dunes; skekEkt with his long, loping gait, skekAyuk with his shorter one, faux-hissing and clacking and lashing tails. Cresting dunes slowly, then descending far more quickly, tearing in and out of waves and scattering congregations of sea birds. When his lungs and muscles begin to protest, skekEkt pivots, and lets skekAyuk crash into him, bowling him over and over in a tangle of mock snarls and scrabbling hind talons and harmless, gnashing mouths.

SkekAyuk pins him, as skekEkt hoped he would, on his back. Just a fleeting touch of fangs around his throat...and then transitioning, seamless, into slow licks and careful preening. His legs on either side of skekAyuk's hips. Impossible to get away.

“Caught me,” he whispers.

“Caught you,” skekAyuk softly agrees.

The last time they did this on the beach, they'd neglected to think about the sand. SkekEkt's not one to learn a hard lesson twice. And yet...

“I _suppose_ we should head back inside,” skekAyuk says, the very picture of reluctance.

“I suppose,” skekEkt concedes, stealing a long, scandalous brush of underbelly on underbelly.

And thus, they do.

Drenched with water, caked with sand, and despite all of skekEkt's efforts, soaked with sun.

***

“What do you suppose they're doing back at the castle right now?”

They're standing around skekSa's kitchen, and everything smells divine. A table set with everything they enjoy and nothing they don't is a rare luxury, and when skekAyuk packed their rations, he did so with this astute prediction in mind. That means grilled Nurloc and Landstrider tripe for skekAyuk, and for skekEkt, Lefar worms and Nebrie shoulder, neither of which are disliked by the Skeksis, but served with Grottan grasping root and swimming in the searing mountain pepper a lifetime as skekAyuk's partner has taught him to love...

Oh, _yes_. SkekEkt's looking forward to this.

“Nursing off last night,” skekAyuk answers, monitoring his pans of sauces with the precision of an alchemist. SkekEkt, sleeves rolled, chops the stems off mushrooms and cuts them into fourths. “In a way, this is perfect timing. I can't imagine they'll want to eat anything complicated for a while.”

“Except for skekVar. SkekVar likes a big, hideously greasy breakfast the day after.”  
  


“Then skekVar can just lick the Chamberlain's chair.”

For the most part, skekEkt simply watches him, letting himself become as distracted as he dares with knife in hand. It's poetry in motion, the sight of skekAyuk coring alliums on the fly, drizzling oil, and stirring palmfuls of spice, and he wonders if it's at all comparable to the feeling skekAyuk gets watching him in his workshop...surely it can't be, if only because his projects don't usually involve fire.

“I really don't get to watch you cook as often as I'd like.”

“What do you mean? You watch me cook all the time.”

“Not without the Podlings aren't. Not like this.”

SkekAyuk smiles. Maybe it's the lighting, maybe it's the blistering fumes coming off the pepper sauce, but skekEkt swears he sees him redden.

They eat on one of the balconies. It's skekEkt's suggestion, and comes to SkekAyuk's surprise ( _“I thought you hated eating outside. I thought you were afraid of swallowing sand.” “We're 700. I don't care about anything anymore.”),_ and it has less to do with the glorious, blazing summer sunset than the way it feels like yet another thing that's so very, very far away from the castle and home.

The food is perfect. He's never tasted anything by skekAyuk that wasn't. And yet, as he whirls the last drips of blazing red sauce about his plate...

“...Darling? Dearest? Light of my life? Do you think, when we threw ourselves into this menu, we might have considered that we would _absolutely_ be jumping one another's tails afterward?”

SkekAyuk pauses with a utensil full of tripe dangling off the end.

“...I...hadn't, no. But you know I cleaned it and cooked it several times over, right? That's the problem with tripe--”

“Oh no, believe me, dear, I have full faith in your abilities not to eat dung. I'm concerned about...well...”

He gestures at his hands. In the general vicinity of his mouth. SkekAyuk gets the message all too clearly.

“ _Oh._ Well, then...”

They scrape the plates with their utensils, saying nothing, mulling over the conundrum even as the first Brother begins to dip below the horizon, as though giving up on them.

“...You wouldn't happen to have any folksy kitchen remedies for taking the heat away, would you?”

“Er...yes, actually. The big orange tin by the window. Don't drink it, just rub it into your hands, then rinse them off with water soap and water. Milk will help your mouth.” He drums the table with a thoughtful talon. “...You know, come to mention, _your_ mouth always tastes especially lovely.”

“The front pocket of my traveling case, little pot of paste, follow up with the rinse.”

Calmly, almost serenely, they remove their finger utensils. SkekAyuk gives the table a cheerful little thump with his hand. “So! Reconvene for dessert in ten, then?”

“Wonderful!”

“Excellent!”

They're off like crawlies scattering in the lights, skekAyuk's heavy footsteps retreating up the stairs and away, while skekEkt makes a mad dash for the kitchen. The Nebrie milk is chilling in the box of ice skekAyuk lugged along for their perishables and his remedy is perched in its prescribed location, and skekEkt draws an enormous beakful of the former before dousing his hands with the latter. It glides like oil and smells like fruit, and if skekAyuk hadn't told him not to put it in his mouth, he would be more than a little tempted.

He oils and washes his hands three times before he's satisfied (all the way to the wrists because one never knows what the night will bring) and swishes several more pulls of milk, spitting them out the window, only considering as he caps the bottle that there was nothing preventing him from swallowing _that_.

He skids back into his balcony seating just as skekAyuk is reaching his. Panting, in mild disarray, and beaming as though nothing out of the ordinary has occurred.

The first Brother is well out of sight.

“Now, then!” skekEkt chirps. “You made some mention of dessert?”

***

Their menu may not have been planned with the rest of the night in mind, but the same can't be said for their dessert. It's fruit. It's cream. There's nothing remotely subtle about it. It's less a dining course and more of an exercise in who can watch who lick it from their finger utensils the longest before breaking.

And it's skekAyuk who breaks. SkekAyuk who never leaves a plate half full, except apparently when skeEkt is sitting across from him moaning not for show, but because he just got a mouthful of something sweet and faintly toasted and it's _that_ good. The next thing skekEkt knows, skekAyuk's tongue is flicking a stray drop of cream from his beak, and the next thing either of them know, they're stumbling over skekSa's no doubt carefully chosen furnishings until skekEkt's back thumps the wall.

(His beak, when skekEkt nibbles it, tastes fresh and delightful and not at all like a barn full of Landstrider.)

Those clever, heavy hands are touching him, marking him in every place they can conceivably reach, and skekEkt thinks that's just fine, pull up his robes and be done with it, but skekAyuk is purring in his ear--

“Oh no, no, no. Not here.”

“Yes here. Against the wall. _Please._ ”

“I want to taste you. Take my time with you.”

“I can't,” skekEkt whimpers plaintively. “I can't make it.”

“You can do it,” skekAyuk soothes. “We're halfway there. You can do it, love.”

How they make it up the stairs is a small miracle but not really, because skekAyuk told him to do it and if skekAyuk says he's capable of something of course he is, haphazard trail of discarded clothing notwithstanding. He hits the bed hard and skekAyuk is right behind him, nipping a trail down his belly, scraping talons over his nipples and toying with his cocks. When his breath reaches his inner thighs, skekEkt awaits the touch of his tongue like a Peeper beetle awaits an eye, or a Dousan awaits death.

But skekAyuk doesn't taste him. Runs slow, exploratory fingertips over and around his slit.

“How I love your vent,” he purrs. “I always have. Do you know how on some of the other Skeksis, one side of their vent is more prominent than the other? Do you know how on some, it blends in so well with their skin, you can hardly see it?”

“You've clearly spent a great deal of time looking at other Skeksis' vents,” skekEkt quips, because if he doesn't laugh, he'll cry with longing.

SkekAyuk hums against him, low and warm. “ _Yours_ is absolutely perfect. The shape of it, like you designed it yourself.” He spreads it with his talons, taking some measure of mercy perhaps, and rubs appreciative circles around the top arch, where the coalition of nerves makes everything sensitive, and skekEkt keens with gratitude, arching into it. “Not too easy to spot, not quite hidden away...did you know that when you bend over, you can just see the faintest hint of pink?”

“So that's why Aughra used to insist we wear robes,” skekEkt remarks dizzily.

“It used to drive me half mad, back when we went about with nothing on. I'd watch you, you'd do something and flash that sliver of color, and just like that, I would be ruined for the day. Just utterly useless.” He licks him then but only once, and ever so softly. SkekEkt all but sobs. “Thra, I'm addicted to every inch of your body. I'd eat you for my last meal.”

He plunges down so hard and fast, skekEkt's not prepared for it, and he wails, grabbing onto his partner's head like he'll turn to dust if he doesn't. SkekAyuk devours him in a way that surely looks and sounds sloppy from the outside, but only skekEkt has ever been on the receiving end of his tongue, and only skekEkt knows how thick and strong it is, performing tricks that could move mountains and end wars, _oh Thra-_

“ _SkekAyuk,_ ” he chokes, a laudation rather than a plea for anything specific. Lapping and lapping away at the sensitive outer arch until he leaks, then dipping down to drink him up, then back to the arch--

His climax blindsides him, hitting out of nowhere. It's disappointing how quickly he succumbs, or it would be if it were all over, but skekAyuk just keeps on him, thoughtfully leaving off his oversensitized spot in favor of rutting him with his tongue. SkekEkt can only lounge back, in astonishment at his good fortune in life.

He wonders if skekAyuk intends to spend the next hour or so wringing climaxes from him with his mouth – as he's extremely wont to do – or if this is merely a means of building him back up. He receives his answer when, just as the knot of warmth and tension in his belly starts to wind up, skekAyuk pulls off and shimmies up his form, where skekEkt greets him with a beak rub and a pleased little crooning noise.

“Please?”

“Always.”

SkekAyuk slips inside him with ease, and skekEkt wraps around him like he belongs there, like he's been wandering for trine and skekAyuk is the pathway leading back to all things familiar. Now that he's got him, now that they're both where they should be, the sharp edge of desperation leaves him, and it's easy to get lost in the most minute of details; how soft skekAyuk's tuft of hair is when he runs his talons through it, the barely there give of his crests. The gentle clack when their beaks tap, or skekAyuk's even, easy rocking.

“I love you. You're home to me.”

SkekAyuk smiles, never tired of hearing it. “I love you too...” He leans in, peppers careful bites from skekEkt's shoulder to his jaw; the kind that may turn into marks they'll find tomorrow, but may just as easily not. “Hate when you feel down about yourself...Want you to always feel as stunning as you are...”

SkekEkt twines his tail around the only tail he ever wants to twine, and in that last moment before skekAyuk's belly pins him in the way he loves, and skekAyuk starts to pound him in the mattress, and he doesn't think at all...

“I do right now.”

***

SkekEkt awakens to the most _incredible_ ache of arousal. Which is a bit like waking up hungry the morning after a banquet.

He blames the dream, which didn't really qualify as such – none of them have dreamed since they began drawing on the Crystal – but a series of half-formed thoughts and images dancing before one's mind in the space between waking and sleeping. Whatever you'd call it, it had been vivid, it had been lurid, and it had guest starred the very beach that's been hosting them, lapping between his legs with an exquisiteness he's very certain he would not experience if he were to go outside right now and lay about the surf with his knees parted. He's positive it's not going to make sense when he's fully conscious, and it may or may not have anything to do with the fact that skekAyuk's tail has, in the course of the night, curled up and tucked itself between his legs.

He rocks softly against it. Not enough to satisfy himself...not enough to be _impolite._ Just a continuous reminder to himself that skekAyuk has a soft, thick tail, one that feels rather wonderful on his groggy and overly sensitive senses.

The picture of discretion, he tells himself. And keeps telling himself that right up until the moment when skekAyuk, in the midst of a thick chuckle, squeezes his backside.

“Morning, lovebird...”

SkekEkt does _not_ squeak, because he doesn't, and claims to the contrary are made by liars. “Good morning.”

“Since when did you go and become an early riser?”

SkekEkt registers the colorful worldplay, but lacks the pep to fight it. “Your fault. Can't get enough of you.”

“If you can climb up, feel free to help yourself.”

“...Wait, really?”

SkekAyuk, in answer, squeezes him again.

SkekEkt doesn't need a great deal of time to consider it...now when he's sopping, and it's been far, _far_ too long since they were free to have unhurried morning sex. He clambers clumsily astride skekAyuk, guiding him in, and with _tha_ t all present and accounted for, stretches out his upper half so as to be as pillowed on skekAyuk as he can get away with. At no point in this undertaking does he open his eyes more than a crack.

SkekAyuk doesn't seem to mind, sighing and stroking him and, every now and then, meeting one of skekEkt's barely conscious thrusts with one of his own.

“If this isn't working for you, do let me know,” skekEkt murmurs.

“Oh no. No complaints here.”

“Good, because you feel amazing.”

SkekAyuk's hands wander without aim or purpose, and skekEkt is all too happy to let them. A tug of his tail here, a pause to appreciate his nipples there, and every now and then, a scenic detour to let his erections drip pre-ejaculate onto his fingers. SkekEkt is smack dab on the line between deliriously aroused and falling asleep, and dreads the latter, which has happened more than once in the past. In an effort to avoid it, he makes himself sit up a little higher, head lolling. SkekAyuk's approving growl rings familiar, if baffling.

“How you like me so much when I'm not made up, I'll never know...”

SkekAyuk pushes a rogue strand of hair from his face. “The whole world gets to see you made up. They don't know how amazing you look with your hair down, no makeup, rocking back on me...”

“Lucky world. I'm a ghoul.”

SkekAyuk pushes up into him, enough to make him gasp, and rolls both phalluses in exactly the way he likes, enough to make him moan. And he supposes he had it coming.

“You're impossibly gorgeous when you climax, and your tail is twitching like it does when you're getting close to climax. So you're just going to have to live with being impossibly gorgeous.”

SkekEkt half mumbles, half whines something about the injustice of it all. When he finally comes, it's with a soft, gentle bloom of pleasure that makes him gasp and stutter rather than lapse into his usual shrieking. Head tipped back, beak parted, through the heat of his partner warming his insides. Coming down to the realization that skekAyuk is watching him intently.

“...See?”

SkekEkt flops on top of him and just laughs and laughs. SkekAyuk noses his shoulders.

“We'll get dressed in a bit,” skekEkt vows sleepily. SkekAyuk nods.

“In a bit.”

***

“ _Ah, skekEkt!”_

The apron is back, as skekEkt dearly hoped it would be. It's a happily useless adornment, plate dressing as it were; skekAyuk is bent over the table, tail cocked in a soft, blunt arch, skekEkt gripping his hips from behind as he pounds into him.

Perhaps they could be forgiven if there had been some element of planning to this. If they'd talked about something, _anything_ , then came to the mutual conclusion that it would be fun. But no, of course not...they'd lazed about in bed, saying nothing for a full hour, then skekEkt broke the comfortable silence by informing skekAyuk he wanted to rut him with the apron on.

“ _SkekEkt...oh, love_...”

He's never actually _been_ with any of the other Skeksis to confirm for certain, but it doesn't matter; SkekAyuk has, without doubt or question, _the_ softest, plushest vent on the face of Thra. It's like wrapping oneself up in a skin bag full of hot water, like rutting cream piled high, and he doesn't want to insert either of his members into anything that doesn't grip him the way skekAyuk does, and that's all _before_ getting into the noises his partner makes.

SkekEkt nibbles the side of his neck, just hard enough to mark, until skekAyuk is cooing and melting under it. Teases his nipples until he squirms. And then, when he's got him limp and pliant, gives him a short, sharp smack on the rump, eliciting a yelp.

“Like that, darling?”

“ _Yes,_ ” skekAyuk keens. “ _Oh, dear Thra, yes_...”

“Want me to fill you up? Make an utter mess of you down here?”

“ _Please, skekEkt..._ ”

SkekEkt pounds him harder, faster, talons skidding on the polished floor, seeking purchase, but skekAyuk is right there, rocking back against him like he's dying for it. Vent rippling, pulling him deeper into its lovely cushioned grip until he's scrambling to stroke skekAyuk's erections, desperate to send his partner over the edge first. It works; skekAyuk gasps a gasp that hitches into a cry, and spills into his hand. Not a moment later, as skekEkt is following suit, he takes his soft throat in a mating bite, swearing all the while that there's nothing in existence that can compare with skekAyuk for taste.

He sprawls, panting, over his partner's breathless form, and doesn't pull out of him until his erections withdraw and make that unhappy decision for both of them.

“...Love? I don't think we're going to get around to getting dressed today.”

SkekAyuk laughs into the once pristine table.

***

Thus begins the most useless, licentious day either of them have had in several hundred trine.

SkekSa's once-home is full of surfaces and they make use of as many as possible. One of the bedrooms has a more ornate headboard than the others, and somehow in the course of things, skekEkt ends up with his hands tied to it, skekAyuk's blunted talons working him until he gushes. Realizing they're both in dire need of a proper bath with soap, they make use of the palatial one, which ends with skekEkt pressed up against the wall beneath the shower sluice. Both come to the mutual agreement that they're spent, just utterly spent, so they spend a laid back hour smoking and staring up at the fresco of a sea monster that adorns the back hall, and if skekSa intended it for anything but staring at while smoking, said purpose is lost on them. Before the warm buzz has quite worn off, they've fallen to fondling each other idly. They make some halfhearted plan to go exploring the forest in search of things for dinner, then skekAyuk fucks him on the floor.

(In one of the bedrooms, quite by accident, they find a message carved into the back of the headboard that reads _“On this very spot, in the summer ninet of the Dry Harvest, skekLach the Collector took skekOk the Scroll-Keeper from behind until he pissed himself a little.”_ They do not make use of this bed.)

As the Brothers reach their zenith in the sky and the sands burn hot, common sense apparently rutted out of them--

“We should go swimming,” skekEkt suggests.

“In the ocean?”

“Yes!”

“Oh..why not? Let's do it.”

They wade out into the waist deep water, blue as anything could ever be, not so far that they can't see the white gleam of sand beneath the crystal clear of it. There they stand shivering around for several seconds, before--

“This is absolutely dreadful.”

“Agreed,” skekAyuk chatters.

They polish off the last of yesterday's syrup rolls and lick the syrup from one other.

***

Evening falls blessedly cool, and skekEkt lounges idly beneath a blanket, seamwork glasses donned, embroidering without a great deal of thought. SkekAyuk has spent the last hour napping on the couch opposite him. SkekEkt's not quite sleepy enough to put down his project and join him, not quite energetic enough to be up and wandering about.

Besides, he likes this one. After the bustle and stress of decking out the castle and getting everyone's party attire completed, it's comfortably aimless; just a needlepainted picture of a creature he saw on his last trip away from the castle, and which skekTek has identified for him thrice, but whose name always slips his mind. It was there beneath a bush at twilight, big dark eyes, long snout and longer ears, and cream colored save for the vibrant red tail. He'd never seen it before or since, and only caught a glimpse of it before it vanished into the foliage and out of his life, and perhaps it's that very fleetingness that's captured his fascination so. It feels like dreams used to feel.

He's _just_ about decided he's satisfied with the richer, deeper reds along the tip of the tail, where the shadows fall across it – it's entirely likely he'll look at it three days later and decide he isn't – when he hears skekAyuk murmuring and shifting and causing the couch to creak.

“Mmm...what are you working on?”

“Little red-tailed beast.”

“Ahhh.” He yawns cavernously, licks his dry beak, and much to skekEkt's relief, does not rehash his interest in finding said creature and cooking it with strips of Nebrie fat to keep it moist. “How long's it been? I didn't sleep the entire night away, did I?”

“No, just an hour or so.”

“Ahh. Wonderful.”

SkekAyuk watches him work in silence for a time, curled up comfortable on his side, a floating head beneath a blanket. His sparse hair is everywhere at once, and if they were within reaching distance, skekEkt would be reaching out and smoothing it over.

“So I've been thinking I might take to wearing earrings,” skekEkt finally says, apropos of nothing.

“How?”

“No idea. But it seems to me if I'm going to lean into being old and stately, I ought to have earrings.”

SkekAyuk gives a leisurely stretch, stubby tail waving about here and there. “Just promise me if you plan on puncturing anything, you won't go to skekTek to have it done. It's not cleanly down there.”

“I'll find a nice clean Vapra. Or pester skekUng.”

“Better.”

When his eyes grow tired and his fingers sore, he tucks it carefully aside, pops his glasses back into their satin case, and joins skekAyuk on the opposite couch, worming beneath his Grirel pelt blanket. SkekAyuk, unprompted, takes his hands and starts massaging them, slow, firm circles on the palm and up each finger, which has the effect of turning the rest of him to warm jelly.

“Just think,” he sighs happily. “This time a few hundred trine from now, the next Great Conjunction will have come and gone, and we'll be able to do this without aching the next day.”

“ _Mm_ ,” hums skekAyuk. “We should bring more food next time. Make a longer stay of it.”

“Do you think we can get away with setting out later tomorrow?”

“ _I'm_ certainly not getting up early.”

SkekAyuk stops massaging his hand, but not before pressing a kiss to his palm.

“Want to take another dip into the pools?”

“Yes, but if you love me, _please_ don't let me turn it into more of the same. I'm going to break a bone or rupture an organ if we do.”

“Deal.”

***

It's a quarter of an hour later, and the evening breezes hint at the scent of some creature's distant campfire. The humid air is warm, perfect. And skekEkt is in skekAyuk's lap, rocking slowly and blissfully, arms about his partner's shoulders and sighing his utmost content. SkekAyuk smirks as he strokes a line from the small of his back to the base of his tail.

“Didn't we make some sort of deal or other? Is there something I'm supposed to be doing?”

“No.”

“I think, in the interest of fulfilling my promise, I should be insisting you stop for your own good.”

“Don't you dare,” the Ornamentalist purrs.

The suns are setting, but there's enough light coming through to tint the water pink and lavender, and to turn the steam the color of summer fruit. The water darkens their bodies, and does slow, lovely things to the butter soft skin around skekAyuk's brown eyes. SkekEkt looks forward to climax the way he looks forward to the realization, someday, that they've had one thousand trine of this...certain to be perfectly wonderful, but very far away, and small in comparison to this, to now, to being as close as they can physically be without merging.

SkekAyuk presses their foreheads together.

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

***

SkekEkt has little memory of even going to bed and none of falling asleep, but this time, when he wakes too early, it's to an all body soreness and the very clear, abundantly transparent message that he simply can't _do_ things like that anymore. But it's alright, because skekAyuk is beside him, holding him, breath falling soft on his shoulder.

“Don't go,” he says, whether or not his partner is awake entirely beside the point, but skekAyuk presses his beak to his jaw. “Please don't go.”

“I won't.”

“Hang breakfast. I don't want it. I just want you.”

“I promise.”

He makes some effort to stay awake, simply because it feels he _never_ gets to sleep in with skekAyuk. His traitorous, weary body is having none of it, and the next time he wakes, it's disgracefully late in the day and skekAyuk is snoring into his hair.

...Thra, _his hair_. He doesn't even want to _look_ at himself, he's positive he looks like a dead Fizzgig and oh, would you look at that! Apparently they had just enough presence of mind to crash into one of the _other_ untouched beds before lapsing into comatose states, aware that their favorite was covered with crusted over wet spots. How sensible of them. But it was just too much to drag a brush through your hair, wasn't it, skekEkt?

He toys between finger combing it and half-dozing, half-daydreaming against skekAyuk's unconscious form until his partner wakes as well.

“Shower?” the Gourmand suggests thickly.

“Please.”

However, he hisses in pain when his claw touches the floor. SkekAyuk looks somewhat guilty. “We overdid it.”

“Oh, hush. As though you don't hurt too.”

“I didn't do as much contorting as you.”

“If I could have you again right now and either of us live to tell the tale, I would.”

One highly protracted shower, then one last dip into the springs, appreciating them at their most vibrant, sunlit blue, before skekEkt settles in to _properly_ do his hair and makeup for the first time since the night of the party. If they've timed this correctly, they'll get back to the castle late enough to avoid seeing anyone, but dressing up like a civilized and decent being is the first in a line of several infant steps meant to ease them back to the grind of day to day life. That means careful choice of pigment (indigo) to go with the robes he's picked out for day (comfortable, but not too comfortable; dust blue and light jewelry, fingerless gloves). Foundation, blush, no diamond powder. SkekEkt pauses.

Maybe it's the fresh air, or the mineral baths, the fact that they've been going at it like Fizzgig, but he looks... _good_. Vibrant. Thra, has his makeup always been so perfect? His lashes so long? Have his teeth always been so sharp and white? SkekAyuk's right, he really _could_ wear sod and leaves and still look better than anyone else.

Is he going to feel dreadful about himself again at some point? Absolutely.

Is that day today? No, no it is most certainly not. And he'll happily take that.

The ice that's been chilling their persishables is all but gone and skekAyuk cooks the last of their food; succulent little chunks of dark meat cooked with eggs in a buttery sauce with excess slices rolled in pastry and set aside for when they inevitably get hungry on the way home. Shelled things with tiny tentacles, briny and sweet, which they crack open and suck down raw.

“Straight from the beach,” skekAyuk proclaims proudly.

SkekEkt cocks a brow. “Where did you even find the time?”

“While you were getting your face in order.”

“There would have been less to get in order if a certain someone hadn't had me facedown all day.”

SkekAyuk chortles. “Lies and slander. You know I like you best when you're facing me.”

SkekEkt blushes and flicks a shell at him.

He feels like doing something while skekAyuk packs his excess of kitchen apparel, so he takes it upon himself to harness the Armaligs, which have been merrily gorging themselves on grasses and fungi all this time, never wandering too far from the carriage. SkekEkt finds them dozing in a patch of sunlight.

“Alright, you layabouts. You've had your fun. The relaxing times are over...back to work!” Whatever the Podlings always say to them to get them moving, it must not be that, because they simply stare at him and make quizical burbling noises. “Come on! Into your harnesses!”

Copious foot nudging doesn't do the trick, nor insults aimed at their intelligence and looks, and it's only when he takes to outright shoving them that they seem to get the idea. Thankfully, it doesn't require enough effort to work up a catastrophic day-ruining sweat, and skekEkt wonders why things can't always work out so smoothly.

He takes a last farewell amble around the house, which they have not bothered to clean or tidy to any extent; dips his talons one more time in the hot springs, runs his claws over the sword hanging by the door. SkekAyuk meets him near the rooftop balcony, and there they allow themselves the final, lingering pleasure of staring out at the sea...and skekEkt, as he does at the end of every trip to this place, understands for just a moment the siren call that took skekSa away.

“Love you,” skekAyuk says. A gentle sound, at home in the wild, free, sweet smell of the coast. “Immeasurably.”

SkekEkt, in turn, presses his beak to the softest part of his hand.

“Love _you_ , darling. And...thank you.”

***

Leaving the oceanside retreat is never as much fun as going there...not even the time they indulged in too much sun, cooked themselves red as boiled meat, and had to limp back to the castle feeling exactly like such. On top of this, their late start means that they quickly run out of daylight, striking reading or embroidery or gazing flatly out the window from the list of things skekEkt would like to be doing to while away at the time, but cannot be.

And so he lets his mind wander. Or more to the point, his mind wanders irrespective of his say in it and he follows along.

He wonders what skekOk is up to, and what would be the most amusing way to breach the topic of skekLach's little bit of headboard vandalism. Whether someone's torn a sleeve, and if so, whether they're making a Landstrider's rump out of attempting to fix it. He wonders if anyone's feeling the quiet that two empty chairs at the dinner table brings.

“Do you ever miss the others when we venture away like this?”

“I don't know whether I truly miss the others or try to convince myself I do,” skekAyuk replies.

“I'm...torn. On one hand, if it ever came down to it that you and I needed to run away together, I could happily live with that, and yet...I do think I would miss skekOk and skekLach, and all the court intrigue, but it's also...oh, I can't find the words for it. It never feels quite right when we're not all together.”

“No, no. I know exactly what you mean,” says skekAyuk. SkekGra, as he so often does, goes without saying. “If we ran away, and even if by some stretch of the imagination we were able to bring the Podlings and all our things with us, I think what I would miss most is the challenge of cooking for a crowd. Not the security of the castle, not the routines...I would miss dinners as a group. Is that strange?”

“Not at all.”

When the roads become smoother, that's always the first sign that they're nearing home. When they start to pass by the great shale ledges, stifling in their closeness and bigness and lit up with biolumniscent white plants in the dark, that's the second.

“How's your...” SkekAyuk asks, waving a hand vaguely. “Your everything?”

“Oh, it's fine,” answers skekEkt, which is more or less the truth. He only aches when he moves, and the key word is ache – he no longer feels as though he's been struck by the carriage. “The bath helped. For that matter, how's _your_ everything?”

“Spongey and battered. Entirely worth it.”

“There you have it,” skekEkt proclaims. “What's that awful, crude saying the Podlings are so fond of? 'If you can still swallow, life is worth living?'”

“'If you can dance the dances that make life worth living, you're far from being old.'”

“Oh, I was _incredibly_ off.”

The Armaligs pull them out from between the claustrophobic jaws of the ledges, and onto the last stretch leading to the castle. SkekEkt, toying boredly with a bit of lace on his own sleeve, begins to mull over an idea he can't _believe_ he's mulling.

“Darling...tell me, how depleted are you just now?”

SkekAyuk blinks at him.

“...Fairly. Or at least, I thought I was, before you asked me in that tone”

SkekEkt smiles a slow, slow smile. “I was simply wondering, perhaps...we get creative? Before our trip comes to an official end?”

SkekAyuk shakes his head, growing smile one of deep affection and only slight disbelief. “The Podlings would be proud.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It's a 'you come here immediately.'”

Bright red, beaming, skekEkt does.

***

The castle lights are burning few and sporadic by the time they roll up. The Skeksis retire earlier than they used to in younger trine, but it's still rather telling that the stable Podlings are forced to rouse themselves, coats pulled over their night things. SkekEkt and skekAyuk, all too happy to be back in a place where they don't have to move things about for themselves, leave it all to their servants with nary a backward glance.

The halls are quite and dim, and it feels not too dissimilar from sneaking out in the first place; like they're getting away with something, and the consequences wouldn't be terribly dire even if they didn't, and even if the Ornamentalist wants nothing save some measure of hot, steaming water to clean up in and their own bed before them, ready to be collapsed bonelessly into, he finds the energy to smother his helpess giggles as the two make their not-so-stealthy way through the halls leading to their chambers.

They round the corner. And there is skekSo.

“Ornamentalist. _Gourmand._ ”

The sovereign Emperor of all Thra, even bedecked in a silken violent nightgown, radiates blood and fang; they can't drop each other's hands fast enough. Bowing comes as reflexively as dodging a hurtling spear.

“Sire!”  
  


“Lord Emperor! We would have come to you--”

“We were just coming to see you--”

“We only just got in, you see, the return journey took longer than we expected--”

“Enough,” skekSo warns, slipping the warm, fragrant cup steaming away in his hand as discreetly as possible into the grip of one of his secondary arms, well behind his back. “I trust your trip away from the castle was invigorating? 'Filled with ample opportunities to study your crafts,' I believe was the phrasing you used, Gourmand?”

SkekAyuk pales, and skekEkt, for a horrible, horrible moment, is watching him be sentenced to the Needler all over again--

But skekSo simply waves a talon. “Cease your trembling. It's really quite alright. Your Podling kitchen staff _more_ than surpassed expectations in your absence.” SkekAyuk's expression wavers only once, but skekEkt catches it. And he knows that skekSo does as well. “On that note...”

“Of course, Emperor.”

“We do thank you for your leave!”

SkekSo watches them slink off like scolded childlings. They don't relax until their door is latched behind them, and the latch carefully checked.

Their eyes meet, and they both know, of course, that they got off very easily. Best not to even think about what _could_ have happened, what may or may not have nearly happened, how very poorly embarassing their Emperor may have turned out for the both of them, at which point they can spend the rest of the night drowning in thoughts thereof, trembling away in one another's arms.

But skekAyuk can still huff mightily.

“I _suppose_ I had that coming.”

SkekEkt's on it at once. “Don't you dare suppose a thing. That sort of dirty, desperate blow may work on the Scientist, but don't you let it get to you.” When skekAyuk's shoulders remain tense, his brows still knotted, skekEkt presses a gentle palm to his partner's cheek. “Especially considering that _that_ , my brilliant darling, was your cunning and surreptitiousness paying off. Three days vanished and you were absolutely right...we got off as free as the breeze!” And finally, skekAyuk snickers, following skekEkt's example like a well worn path.

“You never told me the Emperor had such exacting taste in night attire.”

“Oh, love...the things I could tell you.”

And just like that, it's okay. It's all okay. By the time they're wriggled into their night things, and neglected to unpack, and by the time the give and warmth and scent of their own bed has welcomed them home, and by the time they've curled around each other...

Everything is just simply, perfectly okay.

“So,” skekEkt muses, head on his chest and smile hovering on his beak. “Put our heads together and scheme up a plan for the next one? Preferably before we turn 800?”

While he may not be in an ideal position to see the grin on skekAyuk's face, the note of creeping mischief in his voice is one he'd follow to the ends of the world.  
  


"You didn't hear this from me, but skekLi's often hinted at a lovely spot off the beaten path..."


End file.
